


Absence

by SweetnessandLight



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angels, Angst, Death, Faked Suicide, Heartbreak, Jim is a Little Shit, Loss, Love, M/M, Poor Sebastian, Soulmates, Suicidal Thoughts, lonely
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-09
Updated: 2016-07-09
Packaged: 2018-07-22 14:26:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7442692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SweetnessandLight/pseuds/SweetnessandLight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been two years since Jim Moriarty shot himself on the rooftop of St Bart's Hospital and Sebastian Moran is struggling to live without him.<br/>>>Trigger warning: Themes of suicide and alcohol abuse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Absence

Sebastian ached. He kicked the covers away from his body and exhaled heavily, shivering slightly as a cool rush of air swept over his clammy chest. The room was chilly, a breeze disturbing the blinds which hung halfway down the open window, doing little to block out the light of the streetlamp directly outside the apartment. Heart beating uncomfortably fast, Sebastian hauled himself out of bed and padded over to the window- for the second time tonight he had awoken violently from restless sleep, covered in a sheen of sweat and his heart pounding in his chest.

This time it had been a whisper- a faint voice tugging at the edge of his consciousness- that had pulled him so suddenly back to reality. A voice so...close, it had almost sounded real. So much so that Sebastian had twisted to his left impulsively, only to find an empty space in the bed beside him.

That voice, whispering his name, was so painfully distinct that he had almost forgotten that the owner was long dead. Two years it had been, and Sebastian still had the dreams.

He watched the activity on the street outside- a couple stumbling home drunk, clinging to each other as they giggled unnaturally loudly about something Sebastian couldn't make out. They looked happy. Maybe it was just for one night, they would go home together drunk and in love and wake up hungover and indifferent, but they could go on with their lives without sparing a thought for each other again. He wished it could be like that.

He wished he didn't still hear the voice, didn't still feel sick at the thought of anyone else filling the empty space in the bed beside him, but after countless feeble attempts he had given up trying to move on. All the distractions always lead him back to the same thing.

He considered paying a visit to the bar the couple had come from- he glanced at his watch- it was 2.16 am, they would still be open. Occasionally he would trudge down there in the early hours, downing an offensive amount of hard liquor before finding his way back to the apartment, calling out for the previous resident. It would often take him a few minutes of shouting the name over and over before he realised he was never going to get an answer- only then would he finally collapse into bed as the sun began to rise.

Deciding this wasn't the route he wanted to go down, he continued to look down onto the street numbly. A man appeared at one end , hands shoved deep in the pockets of his hooded jumper as he looked about him anxiously. Sebastian watched as he came closer, stopping almost directly underneath the 3rd floor window and pulling out his phone. He spoke in hushed tones- all Sebastian could hear were a few odd words- "early", "house down" ,"bar" and "cash." A few minutes later another man turned the corner at the opposite end of the street, approaching more confidently and clapping the first man on the back as he handed him something Sebastian couldn't see. They conversed in low tones, Sebastian still couldn't hear everything, but had seen enough drug activity to know this was just petty crime.

His hand itched for his rifle, gathering dust in the corner of the room. He rarely had chance to use it these days, but would satisfy the craving every now and then by taking out the odd unlucky person who wandered underneath the window late at night. It didn't draw too much attention to him- the deaths would be put down to gang crime and all Sebastian's criminal records had been wiped. For a few moments he could forget that face, the voice would be drowned out by the dull thud of the silencer and the force that rippled through his arms as he took the shot.

He reached for it now, setting it up on the stand swiftly and taking aim at the dealer below the window. Neither had noticed the tiny red laser when his finger brushed the trigger, but he froze suddenly as he heard a name that sent shockwaves through his entire body.

"-Moriarty-"

Moriarty. Moriarty.

The next few seconds passed slowly- Sebastian stood deathly still as the name echoed in his head as he tried to figure out if he had actually heard it or was still dreaming. The men continued to speak and Sebastian strained his ears to grasp the nature of the conversation.

"network", "back", "Holmes".

The rifle slipped to the floor with a clash and Sebastian had to duck out of view from the window as the two men's heads snapped up. He took a few steps back into the darkness- there was no hope of overhearing any more of the conversation now, the men would probably move on. He must have misheard them, maybe there was another with the same name, or they were just remembering past events.

They had mentioned Holmes- he took that to mean Sherlock- the consulting detective who had famously committed suicide two years prior, following his exposure as a fraud. Sebastian still wasn't sure of exactly what had happened that day on the rooftop, only that the final problem had been solved and Sherlock was dead, but at a cost Sebastian only became aware of when it had already been paid.

He tasted salt in his mouth as tears streaked down his face and wiped them away numbly. He was barely aware of when he wasn't crying these days- weeks would blur into each other and all Sebastian would achieve for months on end was getting drunk, trashing the apartment in fits of rage and somehow managing to survive on a couple of takeaways per week. His appearance had suffered considerably- he hadn't trained in two years and had lost the majority of his body mass, he rarely shaved and had a bushy mess of ash coloured hair smattered across his face, and his eyes had permanent shadows framing them.

In all honesty he wasn't sure what was keeping him alive. He had never been one with a passion for life, and was of the opinion that the pains outweighed the small pleasures the world provided him. At least he had been until he met his previous employer. He had been slipping, losing his grasp on his will to live before he was given something to cling on to, something in this world that made all the pain worth it. The consulting criminal had saved his life, but he was gone now, and all Sebastian had to live for was his memories.

A wave of anger took hold of him and he grabbed the half empty glass from the bedside table, hurling it across the room to watch it shatter on the wall. He was furious at being left alone in this world. His employer had planned it all out, not thinking twice about taking his own life to get what he wanted, and Sebastian would have done the same. He would've followed James Moriarty beyond the grave in a heartbeat, but he wasn't even given that option. He had just been left behind, to live in the ruins Jim had created, too pathetic to follow through with what he longed to do. He had attempted in the beginning, holding the shotgun to his temple with shaking hands, taking a deep breath as he prepared to pull the trigger, but he couldn't shake off the voice.

"Oh dear, Sebastian. Suicide? How unoriginal."

He could hear the condescending tone, so clearly that he couldn't even bring himself to indulge it. Sebastian still couldn't bear the thought of disappointing Moriarty, even in death.

He wandered through the apartment and flung himself onto the sofa, putting all his concentration into figuring out what the two men had been talking about. Jim had left no information when he died, for all Sebastian knew these men had taken over the network, he thought bitterly. Holmes was a name rarely mentioned these days, other than in circles of fanatics who dedicated their time to cooking up extravagant ways he could have faked his own death. Seb wished he shared their optimism.

If Sherlock Holmes was cropping up again, Sebastian wanted to know about it. He had lost everything to the cause of ruining that man's name, and would not let that go unsuccessful; Holmes did not get to live while Moriarty was dead. He felt the rage boiling up inside him again, and ran his hands over his head suddenly, his fingers getting tangled in the mop of matted hair. After letting out an inaudible growl, he glanced up at the doorway, and froze.

There was somebody in his apartment. Behind the doorframe was black, but he could feel someone standing just out of reach of the streetlight; call it sniper's intuition. He stared for a few more seconds without saying a word, calculating how fast he could get to the nearest weapon in the room before whoever was in the doorway got to him. He was just about to make a dash for the shotgun on the coffee table when he was hit with a strange wave of Déjà Vu, and he rose slowly from his chair.

The cologne.

His breath caught in his throat and he started hyperventilating. This couldn't be. It was some kind of joke, a mistake or a coincidence. He was still dreaming. He was dead. It was a hallucination. It wasn't real.

Hearing the voice was like taking the first drag of a cigarette, it washed over him like honey and his shoulders relaxed so suddenly he almost fell down. He knew there had been something anchoring him to this earth, something that gave his life some kind of purpose, and this was it. He would have gone through the past two years a million times over just to hear that voice. It sounded like home.

"Miss me?"


End file.
